Lipophilic Statins and dementia.

[Boustrophedon]

I'm on statins, so it is slightly worrying that my attention was drawn, by a youtube video, to this paper:

Lipophilic Statins in Subjects with Early Mild Cognitive Impairment: Associations with Conversion to Dementia and Decline in Posterior Cingulate Brain Metabolism in a Long-term Prospective Longitudinal Multi-Center Study

Does the science look good?

The statin I am on Atorvastatin does appear to be one of the ones implicated, should I ask to be changed to another type?

[bob sterman]

Worth noting - that appears to be a conference presentation abstract - so likely not yet fully peer reviewed.

I would worry that once you start slicing up a sample of <400 people into high vs low cholesterol and very lipophilic vs less lipophilic statins - you start to have quite low statistical power.

A particular problem given that assignment to a very lipophilic vs less lipophilic statin was not random - but may depend on non-measured baseline characteristics (or budgetary considerations).

Having said all that - I generally worry that we know neurons need cholesterol. So messing with cholesterol synthesis / metabolism in principle could have risks. But then again - atherosclerosis can mess with the nervous system. Perhaps we can't win? Or to quote a country song by Merle Travis - "If the left one don't get you, then the right one will".

[Gfamily]

All participants were beginning to show signs of cognitive decline, so although it seems to show that some classes of statins can advance its progression, it doesn't indicate whether statins promote or prevent cognitive decline in the first case.

Talk to your GP I guess.